A queue of people with bandaged heads, burned faces and legs in plaster formed outside Spain's immigration office yesterday. They carried doctors' notes, the death certificates of relatives and passports from Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Ecuador and most other parts of Latin America.

Spain announced last week that it would give citizenship or residency to the parents, children, husbands and wives of the dead and injured in Madrid's bomb attacks. Hundreds of wounded and bereaved illegal immigrants are taking up the offer.

At least 50 of the 200 killed in the train attacks were foreign nationals on their way to clean the flats of middle-class Madrid or build its new roads and shopping centres.

Romania - the worst-hit country with 11 fatalities and more than 100 injured - began to fly its dead home yesterday. It promised €8,000 (£5,400) in compensation to bereaved families and €2,400 to the injured. One of Thursday's bombed carriages was the regular meeting point for Romanian workers travelling to the city centre.

Five identified bodies were still waiting at a Madrid cemetery yesterday to be claimed, possibly illegal workers who had come to Madrid alone.

Five Romanians are still missing, and families have been told to wait for news of the 12 sets of unrecognisable remains yet to be identified by DNA and dental records.

Julian, 33, from Bucharest, was one of those queuing for residency. The blast at Atocha threw him down the platform. He had been working illegally as a building worker for three and a half years, earning up to €10 an hour and supporting his mother, father, brother and two nephews at home.

He lived in a two-room suburban flat five compatriots.

"The Romanian community here is very close, everyone feels destroyed by this, but there's no question of me going home," he said

"There is nothing there, no life. My parents in Bucharest are upset and frightened for me, but they don't want me to go back."

His girlfriend Maria, 20, also survived the blast. She arrived a year ago to clean flats for €5 an hour. "We don't want Spanish citizenship, we just want to be considered normal here," she said.

Ionel, 29, who had a bandaged head, was in the carriage where a bomb exploded at El Pozo. He had worked illegally as a builder for four years after his application for legal status was rejected.

"I haven't slept. If I close my eyes, I have nightmares about trains," he said. "I only ask one favour of Spain now: some sort of employment status to make my life normal for once."